


Cold Feet

by Write_like_an_American



Series: Quilldu Prompt Fic [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Comics), Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types, Legendary Star-Lord, Marvel 616
Genre: Hand Jobs, Hibernating, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 13:56:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8404249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: It's cold. Some would even say it's flarking cold. And Peter Quill, much to Yondu's consternation, doesn't hibernate.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **A fun quick-fic that got out of hand. As usual.**
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> **This is set in the comic verse, featuring cute chubby Yondu who's allergic to shirts, and a Quill who's much closer to him in age. They don't have a father/son relationship, in case that isn't clear. Not that I don't love to explore that fucked up dynamic in shipping fic, but... anyway.**

Peter doesn’t remember learning about this in biology class.

“Hibernation?” He looks between Czar, Drizelda, and the engine readout informing them that their power supply has dwindled to dangerously low levels, as if he expects one of them to yell ‘psyche’. “Isn’t that like, what squirrels do in winter?” 

They crowd around the last working Bridge display. It’s so dim that Czar and Peter’s skintones are of a shade with Drizelda’s chest plate: white and green ebbing into grey-brown. The rest of the skeleton crew have long-since faded into the shadows. For a moment, Peter convinces himself they’re dead, and that he, Czar and Drizelda are the last feeble flickers of life onboard. He imagines the Ravager denizens as corpses, entombed forever in lifeless steel. Then he hears Urgl’s gargly snore. 

Nah. They’re alive alright. More’s the pity. 

“Dunno what the flark no squirrel is,” says Drizelda. Her green hair-tendrils are thick as the tubes on Peter’s vacuum; they bunch and flex like snakes, recoiling from the cold air. Czar shrugs, equally stumped. His vast shoulders hunch as he fiddles with the console, trying to draw up something, anything, on the fritzed intraship network system. Sparks fly. Ozone joins the cocktail of acrid scents swarming the Bridge. The whole ship stinks of unwashed bodies and leather (which is per the norm) and smoke (which isn’t). They’ve had the fans on, but they’ve been clunking steadily slower over the past five minutes and the stench is still so thick that Peter has to fight not to cough. He hopes the worst of it’s sucked out the breach, else they’ll all asphyxiate in their sleep. 

“Look kid,” Drizelda continues. “Fact of the matter’s this. With a hole this big in our girl’s side, we gotta conserve power if we wanna keep the shields strong and the oxygen inside where it belongs. That means sacrificin’ somethin’ else. Either engine thrust, which means we’re stuck out here in the middle of buttfuck nowhere on the hope someone’ll swing by and rescue us. Or life support systems, which means we all die.” 

Peter waits a moment. Frowns, when Drizelda doesn’t elaborate. “This is where you tell me the good news.” 

Spinning the projector in his direction, Czar jabs his finger through the cross-sectional blueprint of the _Eclector’s_ city-sized hull. Heaven knows how he’s wrangled it from the dying console. It’s far from the clearest image; it blips and fritzes like a misfiring pacemaker, the surging charge making hairs rise along Peter’s arms. 

“Good news is that we can shut our life support down with the exception of the dorms,” he says. “But we’ll still need to reduce power to absolute bare minimal levels, else our engine might give out before we reach civilized starspace.” 

It’s rare to hear him say so many words in one sitting. Czar isn’t one for idle chit-chat. This situation must be serious. Peter nods to the overhead lamps. They’re circular globules stuck to the Bridge’s ceiling, which is already far from the highest. Large crewmembers have to duck to walk beneath, and Czar, biggest of all, has to crouch. Yondu can swagger about unimpeded – but he’ll punch anyone who points that out. “What about those?” 

Drizelda takes over the explanation when the hologram fizzles to nothing, Czar smacking the console in the vain hope of resurrecting it. “Yeah, they’ll all be goin’ off. There’s a coupla torches for them that take longest to get to sleep, but even they won’t last more than a day. All our systems’ve gotta focus on keeping us oxygenated and with enough heat to survive.” 

_Warm enough to survive_ doesn’t mean _warm enough to be comfortable._ The temperature’s already dropped by several degrees. Peter, who’d been crawling about in an M-ship engine when the breach alarms blared, hadn’t had the time or mental processing power to snatch his jacket before he was bundled out and shoved towards safety. 

Yondu, the one to do the bundling, had hollered for him to head for the Bridge and not look back. Peter found out why once he reached his destination and realized Yondu wasn’t following him. 

He regrets the loss of his coat, the fur-lined jacket he’d taken with him on his first space-jaunt outside of a simulator. Now he’s in work scrubs – dungarees and a t-shirt. Hardly the best garb for alpine weather. He rubs at the goosey prickles pimpling his forearms. It’s freezing. Not like space, which is a dead and barren kind of cold. More… _chilly._ Like back on Terra, when the seasons shifted and the amber hues of autumn drained into the misted ice-blue skies and bare branches of winter. 

Peter can barely remember those days. It’s only been a month since he blasted off in Chang’s precious Kree warbird, but it might as well have been a lifetime. He’s seen so much since then. So many sights; so many sounds and smells and near-death scenarios… He’s cleaned more floors than he cares to admit, and is almost as intimate with the Ravager’s clunky old hoover as he was with the janitorial equipment at the NASA HQ. (It might say _Star-Lord_ rather than _Stark Industries_ on the bonnet, but all cleaning bots are much of a likeness.) 

But as much as it rankles to have been shunted from one scrub-job to another, Peter’s doing more than drudge-work. He’s a fully-fledged pirate! He fights by Yondu’s side, punching noses, taking names, and breaking kneecaps – not necessarily in that order. He’s wrangled money from low-grade crooks and held up ships. He’s even flown his stolen warbird in barrel rolls to escape a fleet of police cruisers – _Noh-vah officers,_ as the Ravagers call them. 

Admittedly, he also had to scrape Yondu’s puke off the windscreen once they landed. Beasties look about as unappetizing outside as in, but Peter still considers that adventure a positive experience. 

However, there’s only so much knowledge that can be crammed into a young Terran’s head. Once you hit that limit, you have to dredge out some of the less important crap to make way for the new. Terra, with the exception of mom-memories, is least important of all. Sometimes though, a flash from the past catches Peter unawares. Like now, for instance. 

Peter can see his breath, shooting from his nostrils in twin dragon plumes. He half expects it to crystallize and fall to the ground with the tinkle of shattering ice. He remembers mom stuffing him into his duffel when he was small enough to be hefted on her hip. He remembers her smiling and gathering his tiny mittened paws to her mouth, blowing warm spitty raspberries to make him giggle. He remembers rubbing her icy-blue fingers to keep them warm, as her lifeblood drizzled from the borehole in her chest. 

Yondu isn’t the same shade of blue – royal carnelian rather than the sickly colour of a horizon thick with air pollution. Nevertheless, Peter can’t help but wish he were here. He’d only get kicked if he tried to hold his hand (rightfully so; Ravagers don’t show sentiment, that’s the first lesson Peter learned). But despite the guy’s arrogance and insufferable smirk, right now he’s the closest thing Peter has to a friend. 

Drizelda heads for the doors. “Awright. We should lock up, tucker down, get sleep.” She doesn’t make more than two steps before Czar grabs her wrist. 

“Hold up. What about the captain?” 

That’s a good question. Peter’s trying not to ruminate over potential answers to it. Ever since he reached the Bridge doors he’s been checking over his shoulder, expecting Yondu to slink out of the darkness like a sleek blue panther, smug grin on his face as he cuffs Peter’s ear and bumps Czar’s fist and convinces them that they’re gonna be fine. Without his presence, Drizelda’s jovialness is a fragile forgery. Her cheery tone sounds forced. 

“He’ll have holed up in one of the lower dorms. We oughta eat our protein rations and snuggle up with the others – else we’re gonna wind up stuck behind Vauvin.” Peter shudders. That’s a prospect none of them relish. Poor Vauvin gets gassy during one-night stake-outs; sleeping at his back for three days would tempt toxic gas poisoning. 

Not that Peter can sleep for three days at all. Sure, he’s claimed as such rhetorically after long days of lugging contraband through the cargo bays, but when the other Ravagers nodded along he’d assumed they were exaggerating too. 

He tugs Czar’s sleeve. As Czar still holds Drizelda’s, they make a curious chain: the short stout Ravager at one end, the gangly pink freckled one at the other, and the huge brawny mate in the middle, arms outstretched like he’s about to be crucified. 

“Czar?” Peter says. “I don’t know how to do this.” 

Czar doesn’t look at him as he shakes his fingers from his cuff. “Kid, it’s easy. You just gotta shut yer eyes.” 

“Nah, I mean. I ain’t never, uh, hibernated before. I’m not sure if I _can.”_

Drizelda scoffs. “Course ya can. All species hibernate. It’s like, basic genetics. Stops ya from wasting energy when it’s cold and there ain’t much food to go round.” 

Shrinking his shoulders, Peter glances towards the rear of the Bridge, where the rest of the ranking Ravagers have piled one atop the other like puppies fresh from their mother’s womb. It’d be cute if they weren’t a bunch of overweight ugly aliens. But although Peter can’t claim to _like_ them much, he has acclimatized to their presence, their rudeness, their lack of hygiene, and even their general aura of BO, gun polish, and halitosis. He listens for Urgl’s snore, just to reassure himself that he’s still breathing. 

“If I sleep for so long, how do I know I’m gonna wake up?” 

He can sense Czar rolling his eyes, even if it’s too dark to really see it. “That’s why we got the compact protein bars. Emergency rations. There’s a good two days’ worth of nutrients in ‘em. I’d say you can get the rest from yer spare tire, but you ain’t got none.” 

Huffing, Peter crosses his arms over his belly. He’s not scrawny. Mom always said his dad was a big man, built like a hero – and Peter certainly doesn’t take after her. They’ll all see, once he’s full grown. “What’re you gonna do then?” he asks as Czar pokes his head through the dark chink of the Bridge door, scanning the pitch black corridor beyond. “Yondu says you’ve got about as much bodyfat as a steroid abuser, and probably the cock size to match.” 

“Yeah, well Yondu oughta know better about that last bit... You tell him that’s his eyesight gettin’ shitty in his old age.” Peter wishes he were here so Czar could tell him himself. Not that he misses him, or he’s worried about him, or he’s feeling guilty because he _assumed_ Yondu would be following at his heels, when he should’ve learnt by now to never trust a Ravager. Just. Peter’s hoping he might have grabbed his jacket. That’s all. 

Drizelda sighs. She touches Czar’s shoulderpatch lightly, a gesture that’d get Peter accused of sentiment if he tried it. In the poor lighting, the gold of the flame is almost indiscernible from its rich merlot surrounds. “We gotta lock the doors,” she says. “The hallways will near absolute zero by the end of the week. We can’t leave no gaps unsealed.” 

Czar’s ragged nails scratch the doorframe. “But the captain –“ 

“Cap’n’s in the loot room, makin’ sure our treasure’s safe. I’ll betcha anything. And if he ain’t…” Her voice trails off. Peter shudders. _If he ain’t, he’s probably already dead._

Czar’s stubbornness cedes to reluctant acceptance. He leans against the Bridge door’s vast slab, grinding it around on its hinges. The automatic shutting mechanism’s about as useless as every other system on board, and even Czar, who’s built like the lovechild of a brick shithouse and a bulldozer, struggles to shift it. Drizelda moves to assist. They’ll have to activate the lock manually – which is one of those spinnable ones, like they have in submarines in old war movies – to get the hermetic seal clamping in place. But once they do, the Bridge will be secure. The most important Ravagers will be safe, bar one. 

The same one who’s just sauntered into view. 

“Now thas just rude,” says Yondu. He sucks in and lifts his arms over his head to fit through the closing gap. “Shuttin’ me out like that. In fact, I’m thinkin’ that’s mutiny, Doon. I oughta keel ya, string you up for a figurehead.” 

Now that Czar and Drizelda have gotten the door moving, it continues to close on its own momentum. Czar offers his Captain an ear-to-ear beam and an arm, awkwardly upraised as if he’d just considered giving Yondu a hug. Yondu side-eyes the latter until the former fades. Then snorts and drags Czar in pound his muscular back. “Idiot. Couldn’t wait five minutes for me?” 

“Drizelda told me to shut the door,” says Czar. Yondu’s embrace could’ve been waived as a passable attempt at breaking his ribs – but Czar sees it for what it is, and bears the rare affection with grace, much as he bears the knuckles that’re introduced to his temple afterwards. 

“An’ if Drizelda told ya to jump into the fusion chamber…” 

Drizelda, coming to stand beside Peter, tosses an arm over his shoulder. It weighs as much as a small cow, but it’s also warm, and Peter’s shivers start to fade for the first time this past hour. “Drizelda says y’all oughta quit arguing and get yer asses ready for bed before the brat freezes.” 

*** 

They chomp through their rations together, the three lower-ranking crewmembers huddled tight around Yondu, whose implant is the brightest lightsource in the room. Peter shivers so hard that his jaws don’t close around the sticky-sweet bar. When he exhales he sprays half-chewed oatmeal over Czar. 

“Fuckin’ hell, Quill! I only washed this last month!” Peter tries to tell him he’s sorry – because experience has taught him that Czar’s grudges tend to result in M-ship hoists breaking just as you walk underneath, and plasma pistols being loaded with cartridges the wrong way up so they spray necrosifying superheated gel backwards across the shooter’s face. But his teeth are chattering too much, and he can’t get the word out. 

Yondu rolls his eyes – Peter knows this because his luminous red glare sweeps the lowslung ceiling. He shucks off his coat. “You’re gonna be sleeping in dem clothes for the next three days,” he tells Czar, as he drapes it around Peter’s shoulders. He doesn’t look at him once – just _does it,_ efficient and automaton, no questions asked. “Suck it up already.” 

Peter inhales, leaning into Yondu’s warmth as best he can until he’s nudged to stand on his own again. This happens far too soon. But at least the coat carries some of Yondu’s bodyheat, and Peter ducks his chin inside the smelly old pelt, pulling it around him like a cloak to conserve as much as possible. 

“Where’d you go anyway?” he asks. Then, a little accusatively – “I thought you were following me.” 

Yondu’s smirk is entirely unapologetic. “Had to go check the vault, didn’t I? And I don’t see you thanking me for pulling ya out of that M-ship. I could’ve left ya in there to depressurize, but –“ 

“But you didn’t, because you’re a big damn hero,” Peter finishes. He sniffs, nose dribbling from the cold, and wipes on Yondu’s fluffy collar. “Here, have my forever undying gratitude.” 

“Brat.” But Yondu ruffles his hair rather than smacking him, so Peter takes it as a compliment. “We lost half the west underquarter. One engine’s unsalvageable, but the treasure’s all safe, an’ that’s what’s important.” 

“What about crew?” Peter asks. 

Yondu shrugs, bare chest a tapestry of tattoos and messily stapled scars. He doesn’t have much in the way of bodyhair, and Peter wonders how he keeps himself warm. Then notices how Yondu’s shoulders have tensed to stop himself shivering, muscles clenched so hard the veins pop out. Idiot can’t even admit he’s cold. “I’d say ‘bout thirty Ravagers died in the initial explosion; more’re likely to drop off before we reach populated starways. ‘Specially if any of the dorms become compromised. But at least they’ll die in their sleep.” 

This time when Peter quivers, it’s not because of the chill. He’s too young to fathom what death really means. Sure, he’s seen plenty of it. Mom, when he was a kid. Astronauts at the NASA station – because accidents always happened, no matter how much red tape you abided by. Since he joined the Ravagers, he’s witnessed more deaths than he cares to count. But those incidents always showed the dying process as a teeth-and-nail struggle, gore, guts, and growling aplenty. Space pirates go out fighting. They scream and kick at Lady Thanatos even as she drags them to her skeletal bosom for that final kiss. Imagining a Ravager dying peacefully is ridiculous. Kinda like the prospect of sleeping for three whole days, actually. 

“Why didn’t ya stay in the trophy room then, idjit? We nearly shut the door on ya!” It’s only Drizelda that can get away with talking to Yondu like that; they’ve known each other so long they’re practically siblings. Rather than threatening her with the stewpot or airlock-expulsion, Yondu accepts the insult with a snort. His gaze skates over Peter and Czar. Then it’s gone again, faster than a buzzing fly, alighting on them so briefly that he might as well have never looked at them at all. 

“No reason,” he lies. Then, after a pause during which Drizelda’s eyebrows climb to ever-more disbelieving heights – “Had to make sure Urgl didn’t attempt no takeovers while I slept. This way I can keep an eye on him.” 

Czar sidesteps, leaving Yondu with a clear line of sight to the snoring galley chief. His beard hairs fidget as they’re blasted by his boozy breath. “Urgl’s conked out like a baby, boss. And we oughta be too. C’mon, let’s kit down and get comfy.” 

Pumping her fist, Drizelda takes the lead. Her broad hips jostle Peter from her path. “Fina-fuckin’-ly. You boys can tuck yerselves in on yer lonesome; I got me a space bagsied between Gvarg and Trix.” She picks her way around and over sleeping bodies in a one-woman game of twister, somehow managing to make her bulk look elegant. Peter doesn’t know why she’s bothering to tiptoe. You can’t wake Trix from a catnap without aid of a claxon and cymbals, let alone hibernation-deep slumber. 

Yondu certainly doesn’t bother with stealth. He stalks to the pile of bodies, boot soles smacking floor plates with their customary clang. His shivers are becoming more prominent. Peter hasn’t exactly shared a heart-to-heart with his captain – sure, he’s shown him the last surviving photo of his mom and told him everything that’s worth knowing about his own pathetic life, but Yondu never bothered to make their bonding mutual. However, he’s learnt some things from the man’s rambling yarns: namely, that his homeplanet had a rainforest climate. He’s not built for cold. Especially not without his fur-lined overcoat. 

A better person might feel guilty. Peter just pulls the stinking leather tighter around his shoulders. It’s so rare for Yondu to give charity that Peter doesn’t want to discourage him – positive reinforcement, and all that. And anyway, the coat’s warm. It reeks of comfort and Ravager and captain, and while Peter grew out of sleeping with a snuggle-blanket long before he begged Chang to let him join the offworld colonization program, this is the next best thing. 

“C’mon kid,” Yondu calls. “You swallowed that bar yet?” Peter nods. He wishes he had some other excuse for staving off the inevitable. “Well, what’chu waiting for – an invitation? Get over here. Unless you wanna freeze yer butt off by the door, in which case be my guest. We could use a nice ice sculpture to brighten up the place. Might use ya to hang hats on, or somethin’ –“ 

“You don’t wear hats,” grunts Czar. He arranges himself behind Yondu, who’s hunkered close enough to Urgl to leach his bodyheat. His broad domed head is like a boulder in the darkness. Peter’s tempted to crack a joke about him crushing Yondu if he rolls – or better yet, about the fact that they’re as good as spooning. “Chafes yer implant, ya said.” 

“S’right! So Quill, if ya dare freeze on me, I won’t have no use for you at all. We’ll chop you up and use ya for icecubes next time we’re orbiting a supergiant –“ 

“Mm.” There’s a rustle of settling leathers; a hiss from Yondu as Czar’s cold nose digs into his neck. “Shaddup about supergiants, boss. I’m cold as it is.” 

“Shaddup yerself. Don’t’chu think you can give me lip just cause I’m using ya as a duvet. Gottit?” 

A sheepish “Yessir.” Peter sniggers. Then regrets it, as Yondu’s gaze falls on him instead. His eyes shimmer with faint bioluminescence, the same shade as his implant’s mechanical glow; right now the red gleam is dull and worn out, but no less potent. 

“And you, boy. What’chu think you’re laughing for? Get over here already, before we fall asleep without ya.” 

If there’s one thing more terrifying than the cold dead innards of a ship on zero-power, it’s being alone in them. Peter scurries as commanded, Yondu’s coat flapping round his calves. There’s not much of a height difference between them, and it’s only slightly loose. The fur around the neck is stained with Beasties juice, but it’s warm and that’s what matters. Peter wonders where he should go. Slot in behind Czar; crush up tight to his back? He’d risk getting smothered between his trapeziuses, but it’d save the potential awkwardness of asking Yondu to budge over… 

Yondu, exhaling through his nose, rolls up onto one elbow. He pats the sliver of space between him and Urgl – Urgl being the mammoth green lout Peter’d won his first boxing match against, however rigged the results. He’s also, consequentially, the person who’s least amenable to the Terran’s presence on board. Peter boggles. 

“Are you insane? He’ll kill me!” 

“He’s so out of it I could paint his face blue an’ he wouldn’t wake up.” Yondu’s face brightens. “Now there’s an idea –“ 

Czar fastens arms around his torso, constricting his captain’s chest like a burly anaconda. “No you don’t,” he mutters, words muffled from where his mouth’s smushed against Yondu’s shoulder. “Not yet. Sleep first.” 

“First good idea you’ve had since I promoted ya. Right Quill. No more messing. I’m losin’ patience, I’m cold as balls, and you gotta be the same. Get over here, get your head down, and get snoring.” A pause. “Although if you snore, I can and will punch ya until you stop.” 

“You’re really selling this.” Peter isn’t going to say no though. He delicately hops over Czar and Yondu’s tangled legs, and wriggles into the gap as directed. Being this close to Urgl without a carving knife being waved at him feels surreal; Peter faces resolutely away from the man’s hairy back and pretends he doesn’t exist. Yondu’s chin, neck and chest fill his vision instead. The captain grasps the sleeves of his coat and shuffles Peter until their fronts are plastered, hauling the thick fabric so it covers the both of them like a weighty, smelly eiderdown. He elbows Czar when he makes an inarticulate noise of protest, but shucks the coat a little further other so he can press under a corner of it too. 

Peter doesn’t complain about being forced to share. He’s warm and snug. He’s digesting his protein bar, storing away all those compacted carbohydrates for the upcoming ordeal. He’s as safe as he’s gonna get, held against his captain’s firm chest and soft stomach, and the light from Yondu’s implant makes the humid space cosy rather than claustrophobic. All in all, this should be perfect. But nothing changes the fact that there’s no way Peter can swandive into slumberland for three days straight – as Drizelda, judging by her rumbling, sonorous snores, has already done. 

“Yondu,” he whispers. Then, a little louder, afraid the man’s already shut his eyes – “Yondu!” 

A yawn; a waft of sour air. Peter wrinkles his nose. The Ravagers have bad breath already; by the end of this week, their halitosis will be strong enough to knock out a herd of moombas. “Sheesh. What, brat?” 

“Promise you’ll stay awake until I fall asleep?” 

Yondu’s mouth scrunches. He looks at the wide-eyed nineteen-year-old clinging to his front, squashing his chin into his chest to see him. “Now, why’d I do that? Yer a big boy, Petey. Don’t need no handholding.” 

“Good question,” says Czar. He’s draped half over Yondu, crawling under the coat as far as a man of his bulk can, with his face sandwiched to his captain’s nape. From Yondu’s scowl, he can feel every blade of stubble scratch as Czar works his jaw. “Y’know your ho-me-oh-stay… homeo-stuh… homeowhassit ain’t designed for cold, boss. Why aren’t you sleeping yet?” 

“Because y’all keep yakking at me! C’mon, Pete. Just go the fuck to sleep already.” 

But he doesn’t shut his eyes. Not yet. 

Czar’s breathing evens into nasal whuffles. Urgl vibrates from the force of his snores. Yet even with his eyes shut, the faint glow of his captain’s implant is visible, illuminating the veins in the underside of Peter’s lids. He counts them, in lieu of sheep. Gets to twenty before he realizes the light is fading. Then deals Yondu a swift and brutal kick to the shin. 

“Ow! The fuck?” 

“You promised!” 

“No I didn’t!” 

“Promise me now then! Promise you won’t fall asleep and leave me!” Even with the newly-reignited gleam of the implant, it’s too dark to see Yondu’s sneer. From the way his hands fold into claws, gouging Peter’s back through his t-shirt, he’s considering throttling him. “Please?” Peter adds. He ducks so his crown brushes Yondu’s chin, hair catching on stubble. “Don’t leave me alone.” 

Once upon a time, Yondu’d reholstered his gun when he realized the thief he was threatening was, in his own words, “just a kid.” That’d given Peter ample opportunity to press his own gun barrel to Yondu’s belly, metal chinking off the staples that held his slit pouch together. Learning from his mistake, Yondu hasn’t afforded Peter any lenience since. Peter’s expected to haul his weight. If he fails, he’s slugged and tied to the whipping post to face his punishment, like any other Ravager. 

Peter’s grateful. He came to space to prove himself, and the last thing he wants is to be babied. But right now, trapped in a dying ship innumerable parsecs from his home, a little coddling wouldn’t go amiss. 

Yondu’s chin grinds on his head like he’s giving him a noogie. “What’chu so afraid of?” he asks. 

So much. He’s afraid of this situation – because it all happened so fast: the siren, the blinding lights, the reek of smoke and the encroaching, unrelenting cold. He’s afraid that Yondu and Czar and the others might sleep for eternity. And he’s afraid that he won’t be able to join them. 

“I don’t think humans hibernate,” he confesses, muffling the words in the coat’s fur trim, which is soggy from his condensing breath. There’s no reply. Peter pulls away, peering through the gloom, trying to locate Yondu’s face and convince himself that he hasn’t nodded off. “Yondu?” 

There’s a silence, left in the aftermath of his quavering voice. It’s punctuated by a vehement “Shit.” 

*** 

“I’m sorry,” says Peter. Yondu unpeels Czar from his back and wraps him around Urgl instead, huffing and heaving at his mate’s deadweight. Czar’s entirely unhelpful. He’s boneless as a deep-sea mollusc. His head rolls on its neck like a ball in a socket; it cracks on the floor when Yondu drops him, loud enough to make Peter wince. “I can’t help it.” 

Yondu’s glower informs Peter that he very much can. It suggests that this is all his fault for being a feeble, piffling little Terran who’s only good for cleaning his floors and/or slow-roasting. Peter, bristling at the unfairness, throws his hands up in the air. Then regrets it, as they slip from the overcoat’s tattered sleeves. Fuck. If it gets much colder, he’s gonna start losing bits to frostbite. “C’mon, Yondu! What’d you do if you were me?” 

“Not tell my captain,” says Yondu, stomping the length of the Bridge to fling himself into his chair. He curls up, trying to protect himself from the chilling air. Peter would feel sorry for him, but it’s the idiot’s own fault for forking over his coat when he’s not wearing a shirt. “Because then he’d have to sit up with me when all he wants to do is sleep.” 

Peter brightens. “You mean you’re not going to hibernate?” 

“Unfortunately.” His voice is all croaky, and his eyes look redder than normal. Peter battens down any sense of culpability. If Yondu’d never tried to steal his ship, he wouldn’t have had to deal with a young Terran crewmate in the first place. Admittedly, Peter would still be adrift in the stars, a starved and emaciated husk – but at least he wouldn’t have to face Yondu's whingeing, and vice versa. 

“What’re we gonna do then?” he asks. “We got seventy two hours while the others sleep. And it’s… Well, it’s fucking freezing.” Yondu, unconcerned by the cuss, rubs his upper lip. The navy’s paled, blood pooling far beneath the surface of the skin. Blueness rises to the pressure of his touch, but it quickly fades as Yondu snaps his fingers. 

“We can paint Urgl for a start! I got some markers round here; use ‘em for scribbling on hardcopy nav charts when we’re in systems that ain’t advanced enough for Nova-tech…” He starts rummaging through the compartments built into his chairseat and arms, banging his heels off the base to get a drawer springing free. He tucks up his legs and crosses them, perched high on the seat, and nods Peter over. His breath foams the air like seaspray around wave-dashed cliffs, and his shoulders don’t look nearly so broad without the coat’s bulky pads, especially not when they’re shivering like that. “You look through there. M’sure they’re in one of these…” 

Peter grins, although his face is so numb it must look more like a grimace. He jogs across, ignoring the noodley feeling of his legs. The coat’s long – it snaps on the back of his boots. But behind his steel toecaps, his feet are rapidly losing bloodflow. “Alright!” 

Feeling through the drawer in the darkness is kinda like playing lucky dip in a viper’s nest. Peter has no idea what he’s touching, and for the most part he doesn’t want to know. He counts himself lucky that he hasn’t prodded anything that bites. When his fingers crest a familiar surface, it’s not an indelible marker but a bottle, the glass registering as warm to his cooling flesh. 

A bottle that sloshes promisingly. 

Yondu freezes at the noise. Peter draws it out, having to wriggle to work it loose from the crud packed around it. He holds it close enough to his face that his weak eyes can make out the level of the liquid within. “At least we won’t get thirsty,” he says. 

Yondu swipes for it. But while Peter’s cold, Yondu’s colder; he misses, aim off, hand clumsily glancing off Peter’s shoulder. “Thas mine,” he hisses. His bared capped teeth throw back the meagre light, silver and gold blending into muddy red. 

“Oh?” Peter teasingly holds it out of his reach. “What is it?” 

“Stuff that ain’t for kids! Give it back, brat, or I’ll…” 

“Eat me? You’ve already had your protein bar, and you’re chubby as is.” 

This time, Yondu’s punch connects. 

“Ow,” says Peter, while Yondu lounges back on his throne and uncorks the bottle. He regains his wind slowly, uncurling from around his bruised stomach like he’s rolling himself up from a yoga-pose, vertebrae after vertebrae clicking into place. “Okay, you win. But tell me what’s in it?” 

“Something that’ll warm me up.” 

“Give me some, then!” 

“Nuh-uh.” Yondu swigs, gasps, and breathes intermittent smoke-signals from his nose. “You get sloshed on our usual grog. Terrans can’t handle this.” Peter pouts. His last encounter with alcohol hadn’t gone in his favour, what with the whole impromptu-karaoke thing, which is a lot more embarrassing in hindsight. But that was months ago! Peter’s grown up since. He’s matured. He’s filled out – just a little. He deserves this. And more than that, he’s cold – so cold that he’d do nearly anything if it meant reintroducing a little heat to his bones. 

“Please?” he wheedles, pulling the sweetest face he can. “Pretty please?” It’s ruined by the dismal ambience – Yondu can’t see him, let alone be beguiled by his puppy-dog eyes. The captain snorts and drains another dram. Peter watches his throat work, silhouetted against the haze of distant stars. They’re so far away that they’re not individually discernible; just a faint glow the horizon, spangled with the occasional glint of a supernova. The Ravagers are travelling through a tract between galaxies, which is why they can’t just orbit a star until they’ve replenished their lost energy. Chances of being saved are virtually nil. Even if another ship did pass, it’d be more likely to rip the _Eclector_ apart for scrap than extend any offers of aid. 

Nope, right now the Ravagers might as well be alone in the universe. And Peter and Yondu, being the only souls on board who aren’t asleep, are more alone still. The least Yondu could do is share his drink. 

Peter stumbles forwards, exaggerating his cold-borne clumsiness. He slumps at the foot of Yondu’s chair. Bangs his forehead off Yondu’s shinguard, before Yondu shifts to tuck his knees to his chest. “C’mon, boss. Just one mouthful.” 

“I’ve already given ya my damn coat. Now you want me to fork over my hard-earned booze too?” The rings in Yondu’s ears jangle as he shakes his head, hugging his legs as if he can wring warmth out of them. “Not likely, kiddo.” 

But as one hour rolls into two, then three then four then five, and the _Eclector_ only gets colder, he relents. 

“Go slow,” he says, shaking the bottle in Peter’s direction. So of course, just to prove that Yondu’s underestimating him, Peter has to down a massive gulp – and promptly hack half of it up. Yondu laughs as he pounds him between the shoulderblades. “Damn brat. C’mon. Try again – slow now. Savour it. Like this.” He demonstrates, swilling the spirits round his cheeks before swallowing. Peter, still spluttering, has to cough several times before he can copy. This time he manages to get the liquid down and hold it there, the cool bottle not registering as any different to his skin temperature where its rim sticks to his moist lips. It burns all the way, reminding him he’s still alive. In that moment, as Peter’s heated from the inside out as if someone’s stoked a furnace in his core, he very almost feels happy. 

”Hey Yondu,” he whispers as the bottle peels from his mouth. “Look at the ice flowers on the window. Aren’t they beautiful?” 

Yondu casts a disinterested eye in their direction. “They’re fractals, Petey. Not flowers.” But he doesn’t tell Peter that Ravagers can’t appreciate pretty things, so that’s one small victory. 

The frost creeps along the floor as they pass the bottle between them. It crusts the ceiling as if they’re in the shadow of an overhanging glacier, waiting for a loud noise to induce an avalanche. Yondu, clad only in pants, boots, and skin, seems content to drink himself into a stupor. But if Peter doesn’t want him to hibernate, he wants him to get hypothermically drunk even less. 

“C’mon,” he says, tugging Yondu’s pantleg. “Get up before your ass freezes to the chair.” 

Urgl’s mug is now adorned in squiggles that won’t be scrubbed off without the aid of a wire brush and pH three-or-less acid. They’ve done jumping jacks. They’ve breathed mist on the viewscreen glass and written cusses in English, Xandarian, and whatever Yondu’s native language is. Peter’s shared a bunch of stories, in the hopes of worming something personal out of his captain, and Yondu’s offered a plethora of tales that are half-hyperbole and half-bullshit. All in all, they’ve been getting on. But time’s ticking, and it’s nearly bedtime. 

Peter’s starting to nod. Yondu, staggering but upright, looks to be in a similar state – potentially a worse one, given that he has to constantly battle his body’s demands for him to tuck into a little blue woodlouse ball and conk out. With alcohol sloshing like liquid plasma in their bellies, the urge to sleep is more like an imperative. But Peter’s concerned that if he lets Yondu’s drooping eyelids fall shut, he won’t be able to wake him up again. Or at least, not until the temperatures have returned to habitable levels There’s forty-eight hours remaining before that occurs, and Peter’s not spending them alone. He’d scupper the ship out of pure boredom. 

“What happens if I wake up and you’re hibernating?” 

“You let me sleep?” Yondu suggests. He swills another grumpy mouthful from his bootleg stash when Peter laughs. “Kid, you are such a pest. I’ve already stayed up with you this long. Show some damn appreciation –“ 

“I’ll stand on you,” Peter decides. “Then jump up and down. Repeatedly.” 

Yondu would throw the bottle at him, if he weren’t cradling it to his chest. He stumbles lopsidedly to his big green blanket. Czar can’t know he’s there, but when Yondu brushes his shoulder, slopping liquor along the way, he grunts and shifts to escape his icy fingertips. “Can’t ya do that to Urgl instead?” he says, giving the man in question a hearty boot to remove him from Czar’s clutches. He insinuates himself between them quickly, wriggling in like a tick before Czar can reclaim his cuddle-buddy. His sigh as Czar’s broad chest, warmed from the compounded bodyheat of him and Urgl, sandwiches to his bare spine is near-exalting. But while Czar and Urgl both squirm at the interpolation of a compact blue body and a bottle, both of whose current temperatures are on par with that of an icicle, they don’t wake. 

Peter side-eyes Urgl mistrustfully. “He’d kill me.” 

Cracking a ruby eye, Yondu twists at the neck to squint at him from over Czar’s shoulder. His bottle, messily recorked, is cuddled against his paunch. “You say that like I wouldn’t. Y’know the only way to wake someone from hibernation is to make ‘em feel their life’s in danger, right? If you try that shit on any of us, the consequences will be on your own fool head.” 

Which means that he’s cemented himself as the only possible victim for Peter’s wake-up call. Any other Ravager would hamstring him without a thought. Yondu at least _likes_ Peter – or at least, he has some further use for him that he has yet to disclose. Processing this new information – not without trepidation, at the thought of Yondu’s usual morning-grouchiness being supplemented by fight-or-flight instinct – Peter slouches after him. The weight of the coat has increased tenfold; Peter swears it’s weighing him down, pulling him towards oblivion. By the time he’s squashed Yondu far enough against Czar that he can fit into the rapidly heating pocket of space, he’s yawning. He’s asleep before his head hits the deck, pillowed on the soft fur collar of Yondu’s coat. 

*** 

But of course, Peter only sleeps eight hours. One of Yondu’s many necklaces – the big gold medallion, the significance of which Peter’s never cared to ask – has dug into his chest, imprinting itself on his sternum. His head’s in a fug, mouth dry from the alcohol. Peter berates Yondu for letting him drink when he has no water to wash it down with. Sure, he can crack ice off the windscreen and lick it until it melts – but that would mean getting up, and that would mean relinquishing his warm spot. 

Because it is _warm._ Peter feels like an island above a magma plume; the heat of the tight-packed pirates on either side of him has seeped into the floor, roasting him from below. It’s only his upper side that prickles with chill. Peter puts a hand to his face, stiffly, and winces as he finds his cheeks dew-damp. 

Eventually though, the demands of his body win out. Peter prises himself off Yondu. He ignores the captain’s shivers, which restart as soon as Peter breaks his embrace, and wraps the coat tighter around himself. Nipping to the window, he gathers enough ice in his shaking hand to quench his thirst. Leaving the warm nest of Ravagers is like stepping into space bare-ass naked. Only in that situation, at least you die quick, the air exploding from your lungs in a bloody rosette. Peter would rather suffer that a thousand times than submit himself to this slow languish as their ship clunks towards the Andromeda galaxy, trailing dead Ravagers and ash. 

But if worst comes to worst and they don’t make it back to the stars before the temperatures dip below even what hibernating aliens can handle, at least Peter won’t die alone. He hurries back to his spot, and sets to waking Yondu. 

Only problem is that making Yondu believe that Peter is a genuine threat to him, even unconscious, is hard to pull off. 

Peter puts his hands around his throat. He digs his nails into the scar that bisects Yondu’s belly – almost as if someone put a knife in his pouch and dragged it sharply across, spilling viscera and steaming innards into the open air. Yondu just keeps snoring, a stupid little smile on his face. He even lets Peter steal his bottle. 

He hasn’t brought his massive gun, the one he poked Peter’s temple when he first knocked the baseball helmet off and saw him for who he truly was. That’s a shame. But Peter rummages through the pockets in Yondu’s coat, fingers numb and clumsy. After nearly ripping apart the seams in frustration he finds what he’s looking for: a stiletto tucked under a lead-lined flap, making it undetectable to scanners. Drawing it, he’s almost tempted to press the blade into his fingertips to see if he feels the sting before he draws blood. But he resists the urge. It’s gonna be hard as it is to hold his hands steady, so he can pretend to slit Yondu’s carotid without actually making good on that threat. 

Peter slopes to Yondu, wondering if he should drag him out from under Czar’s weighty arm. The pair fit together like puzzle pieces: Yondu’s smaller body curved to fit Czar’s front, curled up like a cat. He shoves the blade into his pocket for the duration it takes to lug Yondu up and over Czar. Peter has to dig his nails into Yondu’s wrists and heave with all his insubstantial bodyweight to get the blue lump moving. Yondu’s necklaces patter against his bare chest, damp from his condensed breath. He’s limp as a slug, and about as helpful. Peter gives up on dragging him once he’s over the apex of Czar’s beefy shoulder, and gives him a hearty shove instead. Yondu slithers over Czar’s far flank and puddles on the floor like a corpse that has yet to undergo rigor mortis. 

“Damn, a-hole,” Peter pants, once he’s gotten Yondu to a distance where he isn’t likely to punch Czar if he wakes up flailing. He rests his hands on his knees and breathes for a moment, nostrils aching as they suck the icy air. “Lose some of that flab, would you?” He toes Yondu’s gut. The soft skin squishes under his foot, and Yondu, still fast asleep, grumbles and swats Peter’s ankle. 

Peter can’t help his fond smile. “A-hole,” he says again, because it isn’t often he gets the chance to insult Yondu without having to face a volley of sharp-tongued comebacks. Cocking his head, he coaxes his fuzzy morning brain into co-operation. He needs to find a way to restrain him so Yondu doesn’t attack on automatic. If he weren’t so fucking freezing, he could muster the mental capacity to come up with something more ingenious than what he’s about to do. But right now, his brain’s regurgitating the same concept over and over. Yondu’s bigger than him – not by much, and not for long if Peter keeps growing at his current rate. But if the pipsqueak wants to overcome the pirate, he’s gotta compensate for what he lacks in size. 

“Right,” says Peter, rubbing his hands. Filling one of them with the stiletto, he uses the other to gather Yondu’s wrists, holding them tight so the sleeping man can’t squirm away. He folds blue arms to Yondu’s tattooed chest, then – refusing to let himself overthink what he’s doing – crawls between his legs and lays flat on top of him, incarcerating Yondu’s limbs between them. 

It’s not a surefire hold. Hopefully it’ll stop the worst of Yondu’s retaliation, once the next part of Peter’s plan is underway. 

Peter times his breathing to the torso that rises and falls under his. Yondu’s head lays twisted, face fallen to one side. Lax in sleep, he looks disturbingly vulnerable, and the knife glitters as it twitches under his jaw, clinking off the nearest earring in time with Yondu’s pulse. 

“C’mon, captain,” Peter says, wriggling the blade to and fro. He’s a prick away from puncturing a vital artery; surely that’ll have Yondu’s self-defence mechanisms kicking into gear. “Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey. Or, y’know. Icicles and protein bars.” He twizzles the knife tip, nicking the skin. Yondu flops his head, illogically baring his throat further, and Peter fights the urge to facepalm. “Okay, so you’re not that great at sensing danger. Or maybe it’s just because you know it’s me. You arrogant jackass – you really think you’re that much better than me? I could kill you right here if I wanted…” 

It’s then that he catches the mocking twitch of Yondu’s mouth, the flutter of his navy eyelashes as he struggles not to laugh. The urge to drive the knife home increases. “You shit,” Peter breathes. “You’re just pretending to sleep so I’ll leave you alone, aren’t you? How long’ve you been awake for?” 

Busted, Yondu tips his chin so the blade grazes his jugular and smirks at Peter like he’s won a game. It’s damn infuriating. Peter would love nothing more than to put the bastard in his place – perhaps permanently. But try as he might to convince himself otherwise, despite running with the Ravagers and hunting down the Badoon that killed his mother, Peter is no murderer. And anyway, if he killed Yondu he’d have no one to annoy over the two days of solitude they have remaining. 

Sighing, he pushes onto his elbows, then to his knees, then stands completely. His joints creak like those of a man thrice his age. Yondu, remaining where he’d been dropped with his legs splayed wide and a tiny trickle of blood oozing from his neck, grins like a hyena and raises his hand in an imperious demand for Peter to pull him to standing. When Peter refuses, he shrugs and stretches, spine cracking luxuriously. 

“What’chu wanna do today, Petey?” he asks around his yawn. 

“Punch you in the gob, for starters.” 

He doesn’t expect his grumble to be met with anything other than chuckles. But Yondu surprises him, eyes slivering to a pink half-mast that’d look sultry if he knew any expressions beyond ‘insufferably smug’. “Go on then.” 

“Huh?” Peter, shuffling from foot to foot to stave off the cold – and fighting off the traitorous voice in his mind that whispers he’d be so much warmer if he just gave into temptation and got on top of Yondu again – blinks at him. “You serious?” 

Yondu spreads his arms wide and inviting. “As an A’askavarian is fun in the sack. C’mon, Petey. Hit me.” 

Peter looks at his tight-bunched fists. Slowly forces them to unclench. “I’m not hitting a guy on his back,” he says. Yondu shrugs, as if to say _on your head be it,_ and rolls onto his stomach instead. 

“Any better?” 

“Ha-ha. Stand up.” 

“Too cold.” 

“Well, I’m not hitting you until you do.” 

Grumbling the whole way, as if he’s doing Peter an immense favour, Yondu does as he’s bidden. “There,” he says once he’s upright, hugging himself and rubbing valiantly at his biceps to conserve heat. “Now, I ain’t got no better ideas to warm us up, excepting those that you’re frankly too young for. So get to it, Petey, and –“ 

He’s cut off by Peter’s fist, which squashes his nose a good centimeter back into his face. 

Peter blows on it, as he would a smoking gun. “You were saying?” 

“Ah – flarkin’ stars –“ Yondu stumbles back, clutching his face. Blood sluices between his fingers, glossy navy, and Peter pulls a face at the pop when Yondu resets the busted cartilage. “Okay, so ya know how to throw a punch. Guess I taught ya something.” 

“You didn’t teach me that.” Peter bounces on the balls of his feet, thinking of happier times spent cheering at the screen with Monica and Lisa during boxing season. “I learnt this all on my lonesome.” 

“Congratulations.” Yondu’s grin is all challenge, smeared as it is with blue blood. “Could still use some practice. Kids your age oughta be in a schoolroom anyway – so why don’tchu come learn some more?” 

*** 

“Y’know,” says Peter afterwards, as they sit back-to-back besides the window, cooling their bruised faces on the glass. “I’m not actually that young. Nineteen’s plenty old, where I’m from. Legal adult and everything.” 

“No need to sound so proud about it,” Yondu answers. His words are muffled by his swollen lip, one side of which is busted and blood-puffed from where it caught on a capped tooth. He’s too sore to drink from their bottle, and has been bitching about it ever since Peter’s punch landed. Peter, jaw thoroughly tenderized by each of his captain’s rings, refuses to take responsibility. “What’s so great about getting a longer jail sentence?” 

Of course he’d think like that. Peter scoffs, shoulder bumping Yondu’s. “There’s plenty adults can do that kids can’t! Like drive, in some states. And drink. And. Um. Y’know.” 

Without any nearby stars to illuminate it, the windscreen is a vast mirror, black as an oilspill. It regurgitates the light from Yondu’s implant onto the two pirates’ faces. As such, when Peter glances past his smushed cheek and catches a glimpse of Yondu’s reflected face, he’s hit full-frontal with his leer. “I know, do I?” 

Peter elbows him. “Don’t be an ass.” 

“Why not? I got one. And it’s pretty damn sweet in leather, if I do say so myself…” 

Peter laughs. He can’t help himself. But he cuts himself off when, just for a moment, Yondu’s red eyes betray a flicker of hurt. It’s gone as soon as it’s there – but Peter sees. And he wishes he’d never opened his stupid mouth at all. Not that he likes the guy, or even cares what he thinks. Yet sometimes Yondu acts like such a douche that it’s Peter forgets he’s human too. (Okay, so not technically _human,_ but… Peter’s getting off-topic.) 

“Aren’t I too young?” he says, to fill the silence. “Isn’t that what you said?” 

Yondu scoffs, shuffling along the window. His bare back untacks from Peter’s coat – his coat – with an audible squeak, skin stuck to leather by condensation. Peter hunches instinctively; in Yondu’s absence, the breeze strokes him like a damp icy tongue. “I thought you was a, uh, ‘legal adult and everything’?” 

“Well – yeah. But. Look man, no offence. I like the ladies, y’know?” 

Yondu hasn’t scooted so far that Peter’s out of booting range. This he proves. “So do I, idiot. Look, forget it. Grab me some more damn ice for my lip and let’s go to bed.” Peter clutches his shin – that’s another bruise added to the tally, along with those already cluttering his punch-bloated face. Neither he nor Yondu are at their prettiest. But even so, what Peter feels as he watches the man lurch unsteadily to his feet, wincing as he tests his pulled rotator cuff (shouldn’t have hit Peter so hard then, should he?) isn’t repulsion. If there’s attraction there, it’s of a sort forged by acquaintance rather than first sight; Yondu is, after all, a little on the stout side, and a generous guess might put him on the sweet side of thirty. Hard to tell, under the blue. But there’s something alluring there, despite the myriad flaws. Perhaps if he squints, tilts his head, looks at him from another angle, Peter’ll work out what it is? 

He only notices he’s staring when Yondu glares over his tattooed shoulder. “What?” 

There’s a scar on his back. Peter’s seen it before. The Ravagers wash up in communal shower racks; you become familiar with your crewmates’ idiosyncrasies all-too-quickly, and the scar had been one of the first things to catch Peter’s eye. But to be honest, he’d been distracted trying to peep at what was under Trix’s tight brown-and-blue bodysuit, and hadn’t given it adequate attention. It slits Yondu vertically, opposing the scar on his stomach. Peter spares a second to shudder at the thought of being cut in half hamburger-style in front and hotdog behind. One end brushes his implant base – seems to dive under it, in fact. The other vanishes underneath his myriad belts and holsters. Peter’s mind supplies a handy image of it kissing Yondu’s tailbone. 

“Nothing,” he mumbles, averting his eyes. He scurries past Yondu and assumes his usual position: back snug to Urgl’s, the massive man’s body hair scratching through the coat as he breathes. He shuts his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch Yondu approach – which he does slower than usual, as if he’s lingering over every step. “Let’s sleep. Don’t make this awkward.” 

“I ain’t the one that made this awkward!” It’s a predictable argument, and a patently false one. But Peter’s baiting does the trick. Although he huffs and gripes the whole way, Yondu settles into the warm alcove between Czar and Peter, his humid breath breaking on Peter’s forehead. He nabs a corner of his coat. Then hoists Czar’s massive arm up and over, using him as a security blanket, and lays still. 

Peter doesn’t. He’s fidgety and jumpy. The topic he and Yondu accidentally touched on rubs him like an unpopped blister. He needs a pin to pop it with, else it’ll be itching all night – and while he has no qualms about forcing Yondu awake during daytime hours, his conscience won’t let him bug the captain into insomnia with him. He rolls about, as much as he can. Shifts his weight from shoulder to hip. Wriggles his legs, crosses them one over the other and then back again, like a dog turning circles before it sits on its bed. 

Yondu doesn’t crack an eye. But his bruised lips pull back. “Quit it, Quill.” 

Peter whaps him in the gut. Lightly, by their standards. Yondu still oofs and knees him – and it might’ve developed into another brawl were it not for the surrounding Ravagers, whose bodies form a sturdy corral. Peter’s first to admit defeat. He curls forwards, butting Yondu’s chest. It’s too cold to sweat, but the exertion’s raised a thin film on his forehead, and his short fringe plasters Yondu’s collarbones. 

“Why’d you have to say that?” he whispers. 

“Say what?” 

Oh no. He doesn’t get to play stupid. Peter growls, grinding his fist over Yondu’s belly-scar, chipping his knuckles on the staples. Miraculously, the coat hasn’t slipped off during their tussling; the space between them is toasty warm. Yondu’s skin loses its ghastly cadaver-like coldness as he steals Peter’s bodyheat. _A-hole._

…Only that thought gets him thinking about Yondu’s a-hole, and _that_ thought gets him thinking about… 

Peter hates being a teenager. 

He bangs his crown on Yondu’s chin. The clack of his jaw – and resultant _yowch,_ as Yondu bites his freshly-clotted lip – is music to his ears. “Why’d you have to tell me your ass looks good in leather?” he whines. “Now I can’t stop thinking about it!” 

The cusses break off. They’re replaced, after a beat’s shocked silence, with a filthy chuckle. “And what’s your conclusion, Petey?” 

Only one way to find out. Peter grabs a handful and treats it to a thorough groping. Then groans at Yondu’s pleased purr. 

“Dammit.” 

“I’mma take that as agreement.” The pause lasts a little longer this time. Then Yondu exhales, stale air whuffing across Peter’s temple. He’s got one arm wrapped around his waist while Peter’s drapes over his hip, but as Peter remains non-verbal that hand shifts higher, into neutral territory, rings catching on the soft fabric of his t-shirt. His other hand, pressed between them, makes an effort to touch Peter as little as possible. Difficult, considering the confines, but an effort that’s appreciated nonetheless. “Look Petey. You don’t gotta… You don’t gotta do nothing ya don’t want. I ain’t that kinda guy.” 

Peter sniffs, craning to look at him. His eyes are big and baby-blue. The lashes are stiff with ice crystals and what he sincerely hopes aren’t tears. He’s just… confused. So very, very confused. Because he loves women – always has done, always will. And while Yondu means _something_ to him, he doesn’t yet feel confident enough to define what exactly that _something_ is. Sure, Peter’s willing to experiment. He’s a twenty-first century kid; it’s what they do. But what if he chooses wrong? What if he tries to make this relationship something it’s not, and blows it? Experience indicates that if there’s one thing Peter excels at, it’s screwing up. Why should this be any different? Then he’ll be stuck stranded in another galaxy, all alone and so far from Earth that home is a wishful dream away. 

When he first saw Yondu, he’d been freaked out by his coloration. Only villains had red eyes, Disney taught him that. Back then, they were hard and bitter-bright as almandines, forged in fire and hate. But now… Now those eyes gaze at him with guarded sincerity. Yondu squirms until he can touch Peter’s jaw, stroking the baby-soft stubble. 

“You scared, star-boy?” he whispers. 

Peter’s confession comes with a whimper. He buries it in Yondu’s neck. “Course I am. Aren’t you?” 

“Ravagers don’t admit fear.” But that doesn’t mean they don’t feel it. The grip on Peter’s chin releases. A blue hand finds his own, chilly fingers tangling. Yondu’s breath’s sour but warm, and he’s so close that Peter can feel his heartbeat. It reverberates through his cheek, puttering faster than usual, and Peter knows his own is revving to match. “What now?” 

Peter swallows. “Honestly,” he says timidly. “I’d like to go to sleep.” 

“Damn. You get me all het up and then say that? Gotta be the first time you wanna sleep and I don’t.” But Peter knows from Yondu’s grin – big and smug and shit-eating as ever – that he’s joking. He snorts. And, while Yondu’s mouth remains slightly open from his last word, lifts his head and catches him in a kiss. 

He tastes blood. It’s saltier than Peter’s, less coppery. Peter sucks on Yondu’s split lip, chasing the alien tang. While he doesn’t have much experience in this regard (drunk fumbling in storage closets at the NASA headquarters doesn’t count) he likes to think he does a decent job. He laps hungrily into his mouth, exploring every metal-capped tooth. Flutters his tongue feather-light over the tip of his captain’s, pinning Yondu’s face between his palms with his pinkie fingers hooked through his earrings. 

Yondu makes a surprised noise. Then a delighted one. Then one that’s mildly grossed out. He pushes Peter back, and wipes his chin with a grimace. “You Terrans sure are slobbery.” 

Peter’s accustomed enough to the dull lighting that he can make out the glint of spit in Yondu’s beard hairs. He hopes Yondu can see him too, otherwise his glare is redundant. “You screwed an A’askavarian. I can’t be worse than that.” 

“Well Petey, you ain’t no ladykiller just yet.” Yondu pillows his head on his arm, brushing fingertips across Peter’s lips. Callouses catch on kiss-sensitized flesh. Yondu smirks at Peter’s pout, his burst underlip catching on a pointed canine. “But nobody improves without practice.” 

*** 

Minus the usual cycling of white and blue lamps, which dim and brighten on a forty-eight hour basis, the _Eclector_ might as well be timeless. Peter keeps clock with his own body, trusting its rhythms to help him keep track of the days. 

The temperature reaches a nadir early in the third day. After this point, as they approach the quasars at the bulging verge of the Andromeda galaxy, the frost will sluice from the windscreen and drain into the ship’s recycled water supply, the Ravagers will wake up, and feeling will return to Peter’s fingers and toes. For the time being though, there’s nothing but him and Yondu and numbness. 

There’s a drip on the end of Peter’s nose. He touches it, worming an arm free from the cosy nest, and discovers it to be hard: a snotty dribble that solidified during the night. He picks it free, grimacing, and flicks it at his captain. 

Yondu sleeps on. He snores in soft little whuffles, his face the only part of him not bundled beneath coat and Czar. His cracked lip is shiny with crystallized blood; it glimmers like blue ice. 

Peter’s tempted to let him hibernate in peace. Their conversation last night (and the messy kiss that followed) are bludgeons that beat at his mind, much as Yondu’s fists had pulverized his body in their earlier boxing match. 

Speaking of that boxing match… _Ouch._ Chang always claimed he’d regret solving everything with violence one day, but this is ridiculous. Peter hasn’t felt pain like this since his first fight back in preschool. The cold exacerbates everything. It takes the twinge of tenderized muscle and mutates it into cramps that wrack Peter head to toe, making his limbs seize and his bones ache. It’s as if his body’s decided to save its strength for generating warmth, and forgotten that he needs to heal. Peter attempts to roll from Yondu’s lax embrace, and earns only a spasming oblique. 

“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow…” 

The pain’s a dose of reality. What was he thinking? Yondu’s an alien pirate captain – a male, at that. He’s violent and cruel and money-grubbing. And while Peter certainly has the capacity to be the same, he doesn’t _want_ to be. It’ll never work out between them. And where relationships _‘don’t work out’_ there’s usually screaming (likely), tears (less likely) and shooting (almost definitely). Yondu’ll leave him high and dry. As he so loves to remind Peter, that’s the pirate way. 

But letting Yondu sleep only puts back the inevitable confrontation. Peter slips the blade from his sleeve. He doesn’t hold it to Yondu’s throat immediately, thinking he might as well rehearse. 

“Look buddy,” he tries. The words are shaped cumbersomely: mouth numb, clouds puffing from his nose on the exhale. When he scratches his ear, the skin feels ice-cold and foreign. The touch only registers in his fingertips, as if he’s poked a wax manikin. “You and me, we don’t work. Not as a couple, anyway. You’re far too _you,_ and I’m far too _me.”_

Ugh. What a cliché. He’s not good at this. Peter’s spent his fair share of time as the breaker-uppee – more than his fair share, in his opinion – but he’s never once had to take the active role. He has no idea what he’s doing. His best bet is to wake Yondu and improvise. 

He’s too cold to lug him over Czar again, and Peter knows from last time that Yondu’s wake-up routine doesn’t include thrashing. So he snuggles close to his side and shifts the coat until it blankets his shoulders alone, leaving Yondu bare to the elements from the waist up, barring Czar’s burly arm. He shivers and nuzzles Peter’s neck. There’s a spiral tattoo on his shoulder – one of many, which weave around his torso like climbing vines. The light from his implant is so dim that Peter struggles to see it, even though it’s close enough to his face to blur at the edges. He traces it with the knifeblade, struggling to maintain pressure on the skin without puncturing it, his fine motor control sapped by the chill. 

Even that tiny movement feels like an exertion. Peter has to concentrate, ice-dusted eyelashes sinking to half-mast and tongue poking from the corner of his cold-chapped mouth. By the time he’s followed the tattoo up the tendon in Yondu’s throat, the captain’s awake. 

He doesn’t bother with pretend games this time. His eyes snap open and his body, sandwiched to Peter’s front, undulates like that of a randy snake. 

“Morning Petey,” he purrs. “How d’you wanna keep warm today?” 

*** 

“-Not as a couple, anyway. You’re far too _you,_ and I’m far too _me.”_

There’s a pause. Then – “How long’ve you been practicing this?” 

Peter crosses his arms. Or he tries to. The pair of them are wedged together, face to face, Ravagers piled around them like hillocks made from grungy leather and the occasional tentacle. There’s no space to move. Heck, jerking each other off had been difficult. “Only once.” 

“Sure, Petey.” Yondu examines his sticky hand. Scowling, he smears it down Peter’s t-shirt, careful not to get any on his coat. They’ve ducked beneath it, curled up like children under a duvet at a sleepover – only the air’s warm and sex-stinking, and neither have bothered to zip their flies. “Ya couldn’t have told me that _before_ we did the nasty.” 

Peter studies his stained t-shirt in dismay. He doesn’t dare enact retribution. “Well, it _did_ warm us up…” 

Yondu tries to look offended, but has a hard time hiding his smirk. “You saying ya used me, pipsqueak? Should I be feeling violated?” 

Shrinking lower, the coat’s fluffy pelt tickling his nose, Peter makes his eyes go limpid. “Please don’t kick me off the ship.” 

“I got every right to.” Yondu stretches his back, spine popping, and yawns to show off his yellowed molars. “But I won’t.” 

“Really? _Really_ -really?” Perking, Peter rests his hands on the blue chest he’s been using as a pillow. Then remembers what’s currently covering those hands. He groans. “Ew.” 

Yondu crooks an eyebrow at his tattoos and their new silvery lining. “Hey, you’re the one who wanted to see, an’ I quote, _‘alien spunk’.”_

“Yeah, but I didn’t expect it to be so sticky!” 

“And I didn’t expect yours to smell!” 

They glower at each other, before Yondu cracks a grin. Peter’s first to laugh, and once he’s started he can’t stop. He rests on Yondu’s shaking shoulder, pushing a thigh between his legs and snuggling as close to his body as he can, so they’re both wracked by the other’s giggles. “All the more reason to never do this again, right?” he asks, as the laughter begins to wane. Yondu looks down his nose at him. It’d be hard not to, given how Peter’s burrowing into the dip behind his clavicle like he wants to set down roots there. 

“Sure,” he says. “Whatever. Ain’t like I haven’t got folks lining up to take me for a spin.” His voice is far too flippant. Peter slits an eye open, the one that’s not ringed with bruising. 

“You do?” He doesn’t sound jealous. He _doesn’t._ And if he does, it’s only because he wants to learn Yondu’s secrets. If the captain can pull, Peter – younger and slimmer – definitely can. But rather than indulging him further, Yondu nods at the windscreen. The glass spans the entire wall. Through it, the ever-nearing stars glitter like the jewels in Yondu’s precious treasure-trove, the one he almost forfeited his life to secure. 

“Check it out, Petey. We’re nearly home.” It takes a moment for it to click that he’s not talking about _home_ as Peter thinks of it – a small house in a windswept southern suburb, or the cubby he’d been assigned at the NASA headquarters. 

“Home,” he repeats, as if he’s testing out the word. It’s not and it never will be. But for now, it’s close enough.

**Author's Note:**

> ****  
>  **Hastily written, hastily edited, hastily uploaded. Please comment!**   
> 


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